Everybody hates group projects in school, but they’re a very accurate representation of what happens in *most* work environments. It absolutely prepares you for the workforce. It’s up to you to learn the lessons.

I have always required group projects for that very reason. I don’t care if you hate them. You’re most likely going to work on a team in life and you’ll need to learn how to manage those interactions. I always built-in ways for them to hold their teammates accountable.

It’s not a matter of allowing choice every time (though I did). Teachers have to teach kids how to BE ON A TEAM.
• dividing roles
• managing the progress
• handling conflicts
• holding each other accountable
• evaluating quality

For every team member that did nothing, they were enabled to do so. Either there was no mechanism in place to make that impossible, or no one on the team felt empowered or prepared to call them out. That’s why they do it as adults.

Group projects require planning, and I’m telling you right now, typically teachers assign them WITHOUT making a plan...and that’s the problem. It’s often seen as a low maintenance assignment. ABSOLUTELY. NOT.

When you choose to assign group projects, you’re signing up to plan for and teach (at minimum):
• project management skills
• conflict resolution
• evaluation/appraisal
• design thinking

As a teacher, you need to plan out the checkpoints, rubric, team evaluation method etc.

That means you are going to have to coach your students on how to have crucial conversations much earlier in life. You give them the statement stems, the protocol, etc. Teach them, especially the girls, how to stop saying, “It’s okay” or just working around it by doing more work.

I’m imploring you because as a grown ass woman who was ALWAYS the group leader who did the lion’s share of the work, I never fully learned how to stop picking up the slack from others, and now I’m fucking exhausted. A lifetime of just working around it is killing me slowly.